Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. I am particularly worried. What arrangements are there for those from other countries who come to the United Kingdom to alert them to difficulties regarding accommodation, jobs and other benefits? Secondly, having arrived here, and perhaps being near destitution and rooflessness, what co-ordinated arrangements are there to help them in their difficulties?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I shall answer the question in terms of people coming from A8 and A2 countries, who I think are at the back of the noble Lord's mind. The Government have invested in an extensive information campaign in those countries to ensure that prospective migrants are aware of their rights and their obligations, particularly their rights to seek work and to access social benefits. We are trying to ensure that at the very beginning people know what the prospects are when they come and their rights. The message is essentially, "Think before you leave".
	It is important to point out that, when people come here, 97 per cent of the A8 nationals are in full-time employment. They contribute to the economy. We know that in areas such as Westminster, which is traditionally the part of the city that has the highest levels of rough sleeping, there are people who find themselves destitute. I visited the Passage recently, which is a place to which many A8 migrants go and where they are helped. It is under pressure, like many other places. We have recently made available over £600,000 to central London local authorities to support intervention to work with those nationals who are rough sleepers. There is quite a lot of assistance and charitable help as well.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I can certainly give my noble friend a positive response to that. The Government have played a full part in the OECD to tackle this problem. The House will recognise that it is an international issue, but there is a drive towards requiring some of these areas that my noble friend called "tax havens" to produce standards of transparency with regard to tax accounts that are held in their area. We are making progress, but not as quickly as the Government would wish.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, on the overall position on inequality, we have seen progress in its reduction. The noble Baroness is right to say thatin 2003 there was a blip in progress, but we havemade progress. The most crucial aspect of the Government's strategy is to give greatest support to those most in need. I enumerated ways in which we intend to and are pursuing policies that help those people.

Baroness Andrews: Yes, my Lords, the evidence from our trials shows that home information packs are thought by sellers to be a good thing. Indeed, the polls suggest powerfully in favour of energy performance certificates: YouGov recently said that 71 per cent of people think that energy information is important and they want more information about how to make their homes warmer while at the same time reducing costs. This is popular with consumers and so it should be.

Lord Grocott: My Lords, the Leader of the Opposition's memory of this place goes back a lot further than mine. If he is asking me that question it is one to which he presumably knows the answer, which is always the wise way to operate.
	When you have two Houses starting at different times of the day, the sensible time to take major Statements is at the beginning of business. Had this Statement been on a Monday, a Tuesday or a Thursday, when the Houses start at pretty much the same time, this difficulty would not have arisen. It would have been very odd, however, if a major Statement of this sort had been delayed in the Commons until well into the proceedings; on Wednesdays the Commons start at 11.30 am, so the Statement would have come much later. If the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting that we should start a little earlier in the day, I am totally in favour of that.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, today the Ministry of Justice comes into existence. Creating the new department is the right thing to do—the next step after a decade of constitutional and criminal justice reform to deliver a world-class justice system that has the protection of the public and the reduction of crime and reoffending at its heart.
	The independence of the judiciary is paramount to the success of any justice system and vital to the well-being of our nation. I will, as will my successors, continue to uphold this independence, as is my constitutional and statutory duty.
	The Ministry of Justice deals with all criminal justice issues in conjunction with other criminal justice system Ministers. The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are engaged in combating crime and protecting the public. The two departments—along with the office of the Attorney-General—will continue to work closely together to deliver this. Appropriate working arrangements will be put in place at official level to ensure this happens, particularly on criminal law and sentencing policy, where the relationship between the three departments will be vital.
	In addition, the Prime Minister has announced the creation of a new Cabinet committee on crime and criminal justice policy, which he will chair and on which the Home Secretary, the Attorney-General and I will sit. The Ministry of Justice has responsibility for the family and civil justice systems, human rights, freedom of information, data protection, constitutional issues and electoral matters—all items which remain of vital importance. In this first Statement from the Ministry of Justice I want to address and set out our approach to penal policy. Copies of Penal Policy—A Background Paper are available in the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office.
	The Government have made significant progress in tackling crime since 1997. Over the past decade, according to the British Crime Survey, crime has fallen by 35 per cent. Offences brought to justice are up by nearly 40 per cent since 2002. Ineffective trials have more than halved in the Crown Court since 1997. Fine collection is at 91 per cent, up from 74 per cent in 2003-04.
	The Government have continued throughout to rebalance the criminal justice system in favour of victims and the community as a whole. The creation of the Ministry of Justice offers a significant opportunity to build on this success, with the following three-part programme.
	First, we will continue to protect the public by ensuring we provide prison places for those who the courts determine need custody. This Government have already built 20,000 new prison places over the past10 years—an increase of 33 per cent—built faster than ever before. Eight thousand further places will be built by 2012. We want to examine how to modernise the estate to provide more cost-effective facilities which are better equipped to reduce reoffending. We also want to identify whether the resources in our current estate can be used to finance new accommodation, be that new state-of-the-art prisons or smaller local provision for women and young offenders. I have asked my noble friend Lord Carter of Coles to provide an assessment of the plans for the 8,000 prison places and the longer-term issues affecting the estate, including the inter-relationship between prisons and the rest of the Ministry of Justice estate, to ensure that we have a coherent strategy.
	Our prison-building programme will therefore continue to ensure that we have capacity to lock the most dangerous prisoners away for as long as they are dangerous and enable sentencers to send people into custody wherever they think this is required. The new indeterminate sentence for public protection is now in place, ensuring that the most dangerous prisoners are released only when it is safe to do so. More than 2,200 of these sentences have been issued so far.
	The Government have always recognised that prison must be used for those who need it, and that sentences should be designed to reduce reoffending. However, over decades we have learnt that short custodial sentences are not effective in reducing reoffending. That is why we want to see greater use made of the best community sentences, where evidence shows that they reduce reoffending and offer more effective punishment than custodial sentences of less than 12 months.
	Sentencing policy must support the use of our resources in such a way as to best protect the public, punish offenders and reduce reoffending. Prison should be used to protect the public to the extent and for the purposes necessary to deliver on the statutory aims of sentencing and in accordance with the Criminal Justice Act 2003, with alternatives to custody used when they are more effective in reducing reoffending and providing payback to the community.
	We will ask the Sentencing Guidelines Council to review whether its guidelines fully reflect the principles set out in the 2003 Act. We will also ask it to look at its processes to ensure that it can operate in the way that it considers best enables it effectively to produce such guidelines as are necessary.
	We will ensure that where serious and dangerous offenders breach their licence conditions, the punishment is a swift return to custody, for as long as is necessary. We will propose new arrangements for non-dangerous prisoners to be recalled to prison for 28 days. We will also propose that suspended sentence orders should apply to more serious offences, as we originally intended when they were created in 2003, not to summary ones.
	Secondly, we need to increase confidence in community sentences, to support their greater use where they are more effective in reducing reoffending. Offenders will be required to undertake programmes to stop them reoffending, training to equip them with the skills to get into work, and carry out unpaid work in their local community, organised by the best available providers, whether in the public, private or third sectors. They will be subject to packages to restrict their liberty and movements, make them face up to the consequences of their actions and pay back the communities they have harmed.
	The individual being punished, the community and the sentencer all have to understand that if the penalty is breached, punishment will follow, with custody if necessary. We will ensure that prison places are available for this purpose.
	Thirdly, we renew our commitment to delivering in line with the vision set out in the Carter report of December 2003, including end-to-end offender management and public service reform. There is excellence in the public, private and voluntary sectors in the delivery of prison and probation services, and we want to build on this to reduce reoffending further. In particular, this means commissioning the most effective interventions which will best support the management and rehabilitation of offenders and making use of the fullest range of providers.
	We have put in place the framework, the people, the programmes and the knowledge to make a massive difference to the way in which we deal with crime and protect the public in this country. We must make sure that this investment pays off. Above all, that means the right punishment, for the right length of time, for as long as necessary, with the right interventions and the right level of supervision for each offence.

Lord Kingsland: My Lords, I congratulate the noble and learned Lord on his new name. His acquisition of political titles is positively Gilbertian. He has accumulated—not without incident—first, the Lord Chancellorship, then the Secretary of Stateship for Constitutional Affairs and now the Ministry of Justice. How interesting it is that the title he initially inherited, and was so keen at one stage to relinquish, is the one of real merit.
	I must confess to not warming to the title, Ministry of Justice. Indeed, I find it rather forbidding. Are we soon to expect the Home Office to be renamed the Ministry of the Interior? That would lead to the true continentalisation of our justice system. But politics and justice do not sit together easily. That is what I thought the Constitutional Reform Act was about: to enshrine the principle of separation of powers in our constitution. Of course, we had that already but, to the Government, perception was everything. How typical—dare I say it?
	In this amalgamation, the independence of the judiciary is an issue. In fact, it has become quite a big issue. Not surprisingly, the judges are deeply concerned about their ability to retain their own independence as a consequence of the creation of the new ministry. The noble and learned Lord is familiar with the arguments. Among them, the most important concerns the integrity of the court budget. Already the court budget is under tremendous pressure. One has only to talk to the leading figures in the world of either magistrates or county courts. Some of those institutions are in a desperate situation; and now they have the added threat of having to compete with money for prisons—and, heaven knows, more money is needed for those.
	Then there is the real—or at the very least perceived—danger that judges will come under increasing pressure to tailor their sentences to the availability of prison places. There is also the strong likelihood of the Minister, not as the guardian of the independence of the judiciary but as a politician in charge of criminal policy and prison policy, being repeatedly judicially reviewed in the courts by the judges with whom he is supposed to co-operate.
	As we all know, the process was rushed through with tremendous haste. There was no consultation with Parliament and no resolution of the concerns the judiciary expressed before today. This, of course, is redolent of a previous change in June 2003. Who was responsible for this change? It was the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. Having achieved this split, they have now both decided to resign. PerhapsMr Reid had second thoughts about the wisdom of the split. The broader issue is that the very individuals who have driven the split will not be around to take responsibility for the fact that it does not work.
	We hear much from the Government about joined-up policies. But the conduct of the Home Office over the past several years has been anything but joined up. I suggest to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that the split of the Home Office into the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice aggravates the very problems that were the reasons for the split in the first place.
	The noble and learned Lord has hardly touched on any of these issues which I regard as absolutely fundamental to the change the Government have made. He has, rather, addressed an important new responsibility of the Ministry of Justice—prisons and sentencing. But it must be plain to everybody that the fundamental problem the Government face is one entirely of their own making. They have continually failed to act to provide the necessary places in prison to fit their prison population projections; and we in Opposition have predicted that problem ever since 2003 with the passage of the Criminal Justice Act and all the implications that that has and will have.
	The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor says that he will ask the Sentencing Guidelines Council to review its guidelines on sentencing. Why does he believe that necessary? Does the noble and learned Lord regard the current guidelines as too soft?
	The noble and learned Lord concludes that short custodial sentences are of little use and predicts more relevant community sentences as a better answer. Which kind of offences does the noble and learned Lord have in mind? If short custodial sentences are of small value, what is the point of recalling those who offend on licence and incarcerating them for a mere 28 days?
	The statistics deployed by the noble and learned Lord are impressive as far as they go, but highly selective. I was particularly struck by the point about increasing efficiency in the Crown Court service. As a supporter of jury service, I was extremely pleased to hear that. But what was lacking in those statistics was one about the problem that concerns the general public most—violent crime. On his first day in office, what are his thoughts on that issue and how will he confront it during his time in office?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am grateful for the personal welcome, both from the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, and the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. I also thank the noble Baroness for her support for the Ministry of Justice.
	I completely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, says about the importance of preserving the independence of the judiciary. It is vital that the Ministry of Justice's arrangements do not affect that in any way. That is why there was discussion with the judiciary before the Ministry of Justice was brought into existence. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice said that, provided proper safeguards were put in place, he had no objection to the principle of a Ministry of Justice. The safeguards that he had in mind were ensuring that: the budget of the courts should not be depraded by, for example, the prison budget; there should be no difficulties because of judicial reviews; and there should be no suggestion of the Minister doing anything in relation to the court service that undermined the independence of the judiciary.
	I agree with all three. As I made clear in answer to the Private Notice Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, last week, I do not believe that a ring-fenced budget is the way to deal with it. Statutory obligations remain on the Lord Chancellor to ensure a properly financed court budget. I stand by that. The problem with ring-fencing is that justice sometimes requires that some money be diverted from, for example, the maintenance of court buildings to legal aid to ensure proper access to justice. That must continue, subject to proper safeguards for the court budget.
	In relation to judicial review, although noble Lords will find this almost impossible to believe, I have been judicially reviewed as Lord Chancellor. Indeed, having checked the statistics, I see that last year I was judicially reviewed on 31 occasions. I am quite sure that they were all completely unsuccessful. It has been perfectly possible for me, as Lord Chancellor, to have a relationship with the judges that is not in any way affected by the fact that, from time to time, the Lord Chancellor finds himself as a defendant in court. Nobody in this country is outside the ambit of the law. The judicial review issue does not create a substantial difficulty.
	The history of the split is that during the autumn last year and the spring of this year, consideration was given to where the right split should be. Two considerations apply. First, in the changed world that we face since 9/11, it is right that there be a Home Office able to focus specifically on crime, security, immigration and counterterrorism. It is also right—and one obvious lesson that we all accept—thatthe more joined-up the criminal justice system and the justice system generally, the better the results. The effect of moving prison, probation, penal and sentencing policies into the department responsible for the administration of the courts is that, especially in relation to sentenced offenders, there is much more joining-up. It also provides the opportunity for there to be two more balanced departments in Whitehall, where there can be political drive not only for security and counterterrorism issues but also the penal policy issues.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, asked what sort of offences I would expect the Sentencing Guidelines Council to look at. I shall give a wide range of offences, but they will primarily be acquisitive offences. He asked, too, what we were doing about violent crime; it is perfectly plain that, although the justice system has a significant role in relation to this, fighting violent crime is a much wider issue than simply the justice system. We need to ensure that communities themselves turn against violent crime in the most profound way. However, I completely accept the implication of the noble Lord's remarks on this extremely important issue.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, asked about the timing, which I think that I have indicated. She asked about the details of the split. If one looks at the background paper that I have put into the Printed Paper Office, one will find the details of precisely where the lines are to be drawn. I am grateful to her for supporting the remarks that I made about the importance of the Probation Service last week at a conference, and I am glad that I can repeat them here today in substance. I very much value the work done by the Probation Service. We must work in partnership with the service to achieve the results that we all want to achieve in relation to offender management.
	I am profoundly grateful to the noble Baroness for her remarks about the various parts of the Statement on penal policy, which was the prime purpose of the Statement. I am very glad to be able to say that my noble friend Lady Scotland of Asthal will continue to deal with the Offender Management Bill. She remains in the Home Office, which is a source of great personal grief to me—but there should be continuity there. I have the advantage of having the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, with me, who will as time goes on deal with a range of issues of the sort that the department has dealt with. However, I am very glad that my noble friend Lady Scotland will be able to deal with that Bill; she started it, so I think that she should finish it.

Lord Baker of Dorking: My Lords, would the noble and learned Lord the Secretary of State for Justice not agree that one consequence of this change is that in future it will not be possible to describe the Home Secretary-ship as one of the three great offices of state? The Home Secretary will be responsible for the police, who answer to local authorities, and for the security services. I would never underestimatethe significance of those services, but the nobleand learned Lord will know that they operate independently; they report to the Home Secretary but are not controlled by the Home Secretary. One virtue of the Home Office that disappears today is that it co-ordinated the criminal justice system, balancing the tensions between the conflicting interests of prisons, probation, immigration, sentencing and the police. That has now gone. We will now have two separate departments and it seems inevitable that there will be tension between them, not least in the battle for government resources and cash. The noble and learned Lord talks of having more co-ordination, but we are abandoning a co-ordinated regime for a bifurcated regime and we may well find that we lose more than we gain.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, as to the first point, the Attorney-General has ministerial responsible for the Crown Prosecution Service. It is right that he plays a full part in discussions as part of Cabinet government on the role of the CPS in relation to criminal justice. I accept that the Statement focused almost entirely on offender management. I hope that I made it clear at the outset that the Ministry of Justice has a much wider remit than that, but its first Statement focused on penal policy. I do not forget or underestimate the equal importance of all those other issues.

Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the House agreed a general ban on smoking within the House's premises, with certain exceptions, on 21 December 2004. The House has since passed the Health Act 2006, which will ban smoking in enclosed or substantially enclosed premises open to the public and in workplaces from 1 July. Although the legislation does not apply formally to the House, it would be consistent with recent practice for the House to apply the Act by analogy, as is the case with health and safety at work legislation. The House of Commons shares this approach.
	The Administration and Works Committee therefore decided to revisit the House's smoking policy in the light of the new legislation. The committee came to the view that smoking should be prohibited in all parts of the Lords estate, except in certain outside areas. The Committee therefore recommends that specified smoking areas should be provided in Black Rod's Garden, State Officer's Court and Peers' Inner Court and in an area at the end of the Lords Terrace abutting the Commons Terrace.
	It is proposed that this new policy on smoking should come into operation on 1 July, when the relevant provisions of the Health Act 2006 are commenced by the Secretary of State.
	The Administration and Works Committee, in this report, has put forward a policy which balances the principle of the legislation with the needs of those who wish to continue to be permitted to smoke on the estate. I beg to move.

Lord Monson: My Lords, this is a sad day for those who value the freedoms that we used to take for granted in England. I do not believe that the Administration and Works Committee, of which I once had the honour to be a member, had much choice in the matter. Clearly, there has to be equality of sacrifice—equality of misery, if you like—and legislators must bear the full consequences of their legislation, just like the rest of the population.
	The Government could have protected the sensitivities and well-being of non-smokers by imposing major, but less punitive, restrictions, as in many continental European countries. Instead, most unfortunately, they chose the most draconian option. In parenthesis, what harm does the Truro Room, where smokers of all parties and none gather for a quiet cigarette, do to anyone else in the House?
	On a more practical point, can the Chairman of Committees say what protection there will be for smokers in the designated smoking areas when it rains, snows or hails? Will there be any cover for them? Secondly, can he assure us that an adequate supply of efficient ashtrays will be provided? "Efficient" is a most important word here. Nothing justifiably irritates non-smokers more, in both senses of the word, and also many smokers, than smouldering, tar-filled cigarettes butts. By providing ashtrays that extinguish cigarettes immediately—I shall gladly consult the noble Lord if he wishes to know more about them—that nuisance can be totally avoided.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: moved Amendment No. 1:
	Clause 46, page 28, line 18, at end insert—
	"(5A) The Secretary of State may by order amendSchedule 3."

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, these amendments have been retabled from the previous stage, when they were not moved. I turn briefly to Part 2 of the Bill, which deals with criminal law. I am pleased that we are all in agreement on this part of the Bill, with the exception of one minor point that is the subject of these amendments. Government Amendments Nos. 1 and 4 would allow Schedule 3 to be amendedby affirmative order. As noble Lords will recall,Schedule 3 contains a list of offences that are statutory forms of incitement or other inchoate offences. They are offences that can only be encouraged or assisted with intent.
	As I indicated, I originally tabled these amendments on Report. Following our discussions at that stage, and in particular following the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on the morning of our discussions, I agreed not to move the amendments and to reflect on them. I have considered the issue carefully and have retabled the amendments as proposed on Report. The amendments are necessary and they are appropriate.
	The ability for the order-making power to add an offence to the schedule is not contentious, so I will not repeat my arguments about why it is necessary. However, the ability to remove an offence from the schedule concerned a number of noble Lords and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. We have taken those concerns seriously, and we have considered whether it is truly necessary to have a power to remove an offence from this schedule. We think it conceivable that there might in the future be concerns about restricting liability for offences currently in that schedule; we also think it conceivable that we might all agree that a certain offence should be removed from the schedule. Where that is the case, we think it sensible to provide a power to amend the schedule by order.
	It is always possible that, in the event of there being no agreement, we would be able to debate this matter appropriately and fully. The House would be in a position to make its view known by way of an affirmative resolution, to which the House could agree or not agree, so that the resolution fails. The affirmative resolution procedure is the most appropriate way of ensuring adequate parliamentary scrutiny while maintaining flexibility. As such, I have not made any changes to the amendments that I tabled on Report. I hope that the further time given for consideration of the amendments has been helpful. It is also right to reflect on how well we have been able to arrive at consensus on these issues, and I certainly hope that we would seek to follow this model in future. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for retabling her amendment, because this is an issue that we discussed in detail last time. As she says, her amendment would grant the Information Commissioner the power on his own initiativeto assess any data processing conducted under Clauses 61 to 65 of the Bill. I must resist the amendment but, before I do, I would like to explain why and consider the substance of the amendment. In particular, I wish to look at whether the Information Commissioner already has powers to initiate such issues, which is another matter that has concerned us.
	I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and to the noble Earl that, as I understand it, the Information Commissioner's comments referred to the code of practice amendment and to his access, not to his access to inspect and audit. That was the issue to which he was referring.
	Let me explain why we take the position that we do. First, where the amendment refers to Clause 65, I understand that it is meant to apply to Clauses 63 to 67 of the Bill as amended on Report, and I will proceed on that basis. I start by reiterating that the Data Protection Act already provides the Information Commissioner with the power to assess data processing of his own volition. Under Section 43 of the Data Protection Act, the Information Commissioner can, on his own initiative, serve the data controller of a body or organisation with an information notice requiring the production of information for the purposes of determining whether the data controller has complied or is complying with data protection principles. Any body or organisation dealing with or processing personal information must be registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner. That includes all bodies using the powers under Clauses 63 to 67.
	In addition, Section 40 of the Data Protection Act provides the Information Commissioner with the power to serve enforcement notices of his own volition if he is satisfied that a data controller has contravened or is contravening the data protection principles. The issue of these notices enables him to rectify instances of non-compliance with any of the data protection principles. Failure to comply with an enforcement notice or an information notice is an offence under Section 47 of the Act. A person guilty of an offence on summary conviction is liable to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum and, on indictment, to an unlimited fine. In any event, it is not in the data controllers' interests to refuse access if they wish to satisfy the commissioner that their activities comply with the Act. We therefore believe that adequate powers are already provided to the Information Commissioner in that regard without further provision.
	I understand that the Audit Commission has already made a standing offer to the Information Commissioner to assess the data processing that it undertakes in carrying out the national fraud initiative, particularly with regard to the security arrangements that are in place. I further understand that the Audit Commission and the Information Commissioner meet regularly to discuss good practice with regard to data matching and data processing generally. The practical reality is that the two bodies have a constructive relationship, which is likely to continue.
	With regard to the code of practice for all those using the data-sharing powers of the Bill, I stated on Report that the Government hoped to return to the House with a more definite indication of our plans. I can now give an assurance that the Government will introduce an amendment to that effect; that is, introducing a code of practice, the detail of which will be discussed in another place. That is the issue that the Information Commissioner was most exercised about.
	The Audit Commission's national fraud initiative code of data matching practice contains a provision that under Section 51(7) of the Data Protection Act specifically invites the Information Commissioner to assess the national fraud initiative's compliance with that Act. The provision also recommends that all bodies supplying the data for data-matching exercises should similarly consent to reasonable requests made by the Information Commissioner to assess their processing of personal data. It is envisaged that the code of practice for the disclosure of information to prevent fraud will contain a similar provision.
	In summary, we believe that the Information Commissioner has at his disposal all the necessary powers to ensure that the data sharing and data matching carried out using the powers in the Serious Crime Bill comply with the Data Protection Act. For those reasons, the Government believe that the amendment is unnecessary. I am grateful to the noble Baroness and the Information Commissioner, however, for giving us the opportunity to look again at the powers to initiate, just to clarify whether the Data Protection Act is in fact able to deliver what was required. We believe that the powers that are already there will satisfy on that account.
	As I have indicated, it gives me some pleasure to be able to say with regard to the issue of the code, a matter that was exercising more attention, that we will be able to satisfy this House in due course, but that this matter will be raised, and, I hope, dealt with well, in the other place when the Bill leaves this House—if, of course, your Lordships agree that it should do so.

The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships for long. We all know where we wish to get to with this matter. Indeed, I—and I suspect my noble friend Lady Anelay—welcomed the Minister's magnanimous assurances on Report. Your Lordships will recall that the Minister intimated that she might be able to give a more definite indication of the Government's intentions today; she repeated that earlier. Accordingly, as with the previous amendment, my purpose was to give an opportunity to the Minister to advise the House of progress being made. She has already dealt with that in the main while speaking to the previous amendment. Nevertheless, I would be grateful if she would give, if possible, a little more flesh on the bones of the Government's thinking.
	I would have preferred to have resolved this matter before sending the Bill to another place. However, as the Minister said on Report, there may be something to be said for giving it,
	"a little something to do".—[Official Report, 30/4/07; col. 880.]
	I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, for bringing this back. The amendment would give an outline of what the guidance should cover and who should be consulted on its production. The amendment also provides that:
	"The Secretary of State may, by regulations subject to affirmative resolution of each House of Parliament, proscribe and penalise contravention of",
	this guidance. I understand—and indeed the noble Baroness and noble Lord will know—that I would like to assist in giving much more flesh on the bones. However, I have a little difficulty doing that today.
	On Report, the noble Baroness once again undertook to raise the statutory code of practice to give me the opportunity of making a very firm commitment, and I was delighted to be able to give her that assurance. Because of the way in which the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, the noble Baroness and we have worked together in the past, I hope that they will accept that if I were in a position to give chapter and verse, I would be the first to do so here. But we are not quite at that stage yet. The Government will bring forward the amendment in the other place which will introduce the duty to produce and have regard to a code of practice. The detail is being discussed widely; these are matters which we believe we need to consider further. However, I reassure your Lordships that we have been working very closely with the former Department for Constitutional Affairs—now the Ministry of Justice—and will liaise with the Information Commissioner on the detail of the amendment, as the Minister in the other place, my honourable friend Vernon Coaker, undertook to do at the meeting with the Information Commissioner on 18 April.
	I hope that noble Lords opposite will also accept that we will try to keep noble Lords and opposition partners in as close contact about that development as possible. My honourable friend and I have both indicated that we wish to work on a very collaborative basis on these issues. I do not anticipate that there is likely to be a great deal of contention in this area; rather, I anticipate that consensus and information are likely to prevail.
	We recognise the concerns that have been raised by noble Lords and by the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the need for safeguards to apply to these provisions. We are drafting the new amendments with their comments and helpful suggestions very much in mind. I have not been able to be as helpful as I would ideally have liked to be in the short time we have, but I hope, given that undertaking, that the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, will feel able to withdraw the amendment. I will do all I can in the interim to make sure that noble Lords are kept in touch with those developments, as may be proper.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, with permission, I shall repeat a Statement made earlier today in the other place by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The Statement is as follows:
	"I do not think it is possible to over-estimate the significance of yesterday's events at Stormont. "In effect we witnessed the final resolution of what has been, for centuries, the most intractable source of political conflict in the whole of Europe. Its significance is not confined to relations within these islands, because what happened on 8 May 2007 showed the world how a shared future can emerge from even the most bitterly divided and blood stricken past, and we must never forget how much misery and suffering that caused."Many people, including Members from all sides of the House, have worked tirelessly to make yesterday possible. The foundations were set by the 1998 Good Friday agreement, with the principle of consent and power-sharing at its core. But, seeing the DUP and Sinn Fein going into government together on a fair and equitable basis, makes 'historic' seem a cliché. That they have done it without the DUP ceasing to be the DUP and without Sinn Fein ceasing to be Sinn Fein is all the more remarkable. When we witnessed that now iconic picture of the leaders of the DUP and Sinn Fein together for the first time on 26 March, we knew that Northern Ireland and the wider world would never be the same. Since then, the DUP and Sinn Fein, by working together, have shown that the greater good can be served without sacrificing either principle or integrity. "Indeed, I was delighted that the first joint letter signed by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister was to ask me to leave my office in Stormont Castle to enable them to move in, in time for yesterday's first meeting of the Assembly and the formation of the Executive. Never has an eviction notice been so eagerly anticipated or so warmly received. Meeting the First and Deputy First Ministers together, I have been struck by their businesslike approach to preparing for government and, perhaps even more remarkably, their cordial and warm personal interaction. Above all, they have shown that age-old enmities can be overcome. That is truly inspirational, as we saw yesterday when they preached together at Stormont a common gospel of healing. "I am convinced that devolution is here to stay. It would now be as unthinkable for Northern Ireland to ask for a return to direct rule in the future as it would be for Scotland or Wales. Indeed, who would have imagined that, as of today, of all the devolved Administrations, Northern Ireland would have the only settled Government in place?"The key to the future peace and prosperity of everyone in Northern Ireland lies in the shared future epitomised by the new Assembly and Executive. That shared future must go beyond the "big politics" of Parliament Buildings. Astonishing as the political transformation over the past two years has been, there is much more to be done. We must find a way of dealing with the past and addressing the needs of victims and survivors. Although last summer's marching season went off more peacefully and with greater consultation than ever before, a global solution to parading still needs to be negotiated. I hope that the review team headed by the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, will help to achieve this."There are too many so-called peace walls that still divide communities in Northern Ireland and some parts of Northern Ireland which continue to feel isolated, marginalised, deprived and out of the mainstream. I am thinking especially of loyalism and its place in a shared future. We have always said that we will support and encourage those who want to work to a positive agenda, who wanted to bring about change and who had sustainable mechanisms for doing it."People have a right to have their identity, their culture and their traditions respected, but if loyalism does not get into the mainstream and catch the tide that is taking Northern Ireland forward there is a real danger that despite the best intentions, they will be left behind and further isolated because no one will understand why there are groups within loyalism that still cling to an armed past."Last week's declaration by the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando that they will end paramilitary activity was welcome. Guns, drugs and crime have no place within a community whose people want the best for their families and the best for their community core values. I want loyalism to play a full part in the new Northern Ireland and a full part in the shared future, as we should all want it to do, because loyalism, anchored to peace, the rule of law and democracy, has an honourable place in that future."Northern Ireland has changed immeasurably since direct rule was introduced in 1972, the year that, as a student, I first visited. Apart from anything else, Northern Ireland is fast becoming a multi-cultural, multi-faith and forward-looking community, evidenced by the election of Anna Lo as the first person of Chinese origin in Europe to become a member of a legislative body: for Northern Ireland a first, just like the first civil partnership ceremony anywhere in the UK. This is all part of the shared future."The whole process demonstrates what relentless attention by government and persistent negotiations, regardless of crises, collapses and depressing stalemates, can achieve. This must give hope to those trying to resolve conflicts the world over. For generations the politics of Northern Ireland has been sometimes a murderous zero-sum game of winners and losers. Yesterday saw an end to that. Whatever the challenges that lie ahead, they will be played out on the field of politics and democracy."The MLAs who came together in Parliament Buildings yesterday, amidst a joyous mood of reconciliation, carry the hopes and aspirations of a people who have yearned for peace, stability and prosperity and have waited so terribly long to see it. I know that the whole House will support all those as we enter this new and exciting era".My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I apologise for being slightly late when the Minister was repeating the Statement, but I had read it in advance because it was available.
	Of course, yesterday was a truly historic day, although the word historic will be overworked in describing it. There is not really a word "superhistoric", but that is what it was. Restoring devolution was absolutely vital.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said, there are many debts that we in this House should acknowledge to those who helped to bring this about. It is quite true that it began first with John Major's Administration and the role played by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, when he was Secretary of State. It continued apace, though with fits and starts.
	When Stormont was suspended in 2002 it was, as I predicted at the time, a long suspension. The longer it went on the more difficult it was to see how it would be restored, but it has been. We should acknowledge, as I have said before, the importance of the "ABC" trio; Mr Ahern, Mr Blair and Mr Clinton. I was privileged to be working in Northern Ireland at the time and never in the world's history has so much head of government pressure been applied to such a relatively small place.
	I have one quibble with the Statement. My former student the Secretary of State said:
	"Indeed, who would have imagined that, as of today, of all the devolved Administrations, Northern Ireland would have the only settled Government in place".
	That is not the whole story; Northern Ireland has a plethora of government and a miniscule bit of opposition, which Ms Anna Lo will have to take on with her Alliance Party. In Scotland and Wales we have a plethora of opposition and not much government. That is a good exam question for the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, to ask his students to discuss in the summer.
	More seriously we have the issue of the loyalist paramilitaries decommissioning, as the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said. It is vital that the Government press ahead with that. I am sure that the Minister will be able to reassure us on that point.
	When plan A was touch and go, we were discussing plan B; that Northern Ireland business in this House would no longer be dealt briefly. With regard to reserve powers, I hope that the Government will stick to that commitment and that we will not have Northern Ireland legislation or reserve powers by way of Order in Council. We should be able to devise a system. The reserve powers will be important; they are not trivial. We must have a mechanism in this House for properly considering them. Other than that, it is a great day for Northern Ireland and we must wish it well.

Baroness Blood: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for the Statement. As has already been said, many people here today can be named for getting us to where we got yesterday. Good foundations were laid here, and I call to mind a host of people. People talk about the peace process in the 1990s, but I can remember communities coming together in the late 1980s. The noble Lord, Lord King, is quite right: people took real opportunities then and a number of my friends were killed at that time, simply because they were doing what they thought was right. So a lot of foundations were laid for this. In one sense that is good, and it is good that we got to where we did yesterday. But we should not disguise the fact that we still have a very segregated community in Northern Ireland, both in housing and in education. The only area that is not segregated is the workforce, because that is against the law. There is a lot of hard work for us to do.
	Part of the Statement was critical of the loyalist paramilitaries. I would press the Minister and the Secretary of State not to let that drop. The IRA was pursued because it was given a carrot to be in government. In that sense, there is nothing to be offered to the loyalist paramilitaries, and I hope to God that money will not be offered to them—I would be seriously opposed to that. However, I hope that the pressure on them will be kept up. I live in a community that is run by paramilitaries; I know what goes on there and I know that we cannot afford to allow it to continue. I wish that everyone could have been as happy as the people in Stormont were yesterday, but many still live under the jackboot of people who know no better than to torture their own community.
	Looking at yesterday and all the things that have happened, we have come down a long road. I must be frank; I never thought that I would see what happened yesterday. I am grateful, but there is hard work ahead. If we thought that the past years of the peace process were tough, the next five to 10 years will be very tough for Northern Ireland. Over the past30 years we have been used to having money thrown at us by everyone, just to keep us quiet. We do not have that excuse anymore and we cannot come along and say, "Please give us money, because of the Troubles". We are a normal society now, and that will mean tremendously hard work for everyone in Northern Ireland, not just for our politicians.
	Finally, I wish everyone in Stormont a fair wind. A lot of responsibility is on their shoulders and I look forward to them delivering.

Lord Soley: My Lords, it is some years since I made any statements or asked any questions in Parliament on Northern Ireland, but I cannot let this occasion pass without doing so. I remind my noble friend, who was a Member of Parliament with me during the 1970s and 1980s, that it was regarded as virtually the end of one's political career in almost any party to be given Front-Bench responsibility for Northern Ireland. One of the people who had such responsibility, the noble Lord, Lord Prior—then Jim Prior, MP—took an action that was profoundly important, by signing the Anglo-Irish agreement. That was a recognition that only by the two Governments acting together could we solve this problem. It is absolutely right that we respect every person who fought against the violence in Northern Ireland, including our own troops, but the contributions made by politicians at that time, including the noble Lord, Lord Prior, were very important in taking matters forward. There is no way in which we can thank everyone involved, but there is a way in which we can learn from the problems and take that forward. What has happened over the past few years has been deeply encouraging and, at times, quite moving. Everyone has compromised and, perhaps most important, no one has lost. Ultimately, the people of Northern Ireland have won.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. I hope that I addressed that in my earlier remarks. There must be interest, guidance and assistance from the top of the United Kingdom Government and from other bodies—not interference. Devolution of the 11 ministries has taken place and locally elected politicians will make the decisions, but more devolution will come at the appropriate time. As the noble Lord implied, in the50 years, the reluctance to interfere probably lasted too long. I remember representations to my former Member of Parliament, Chris Price, in the early 1960s—1964 or 1965—when people were unhappy about what was happening. Things were allowed and one would say that it was local democracy.
	However, Northern Ireland cannot be put out of sight, as all could be lost. It would not be right, for those who have made sacrifices, to turn a blind eye and to say, "The situation is now settled so get on with it". That would be wholly unfair and inconsistent. There will be much crossing over of the boundaries in the kind of civic society that has been built in Northern Ireland. There is much that we, in Great Britain, can learn from the people of Northern Ireland, and vice versa. It is very important to get across the message that they are not on their own and that they are part of a whole. Whether it is the south or Westminster, it is important to provide help and sustenance to the democratic framework, within the rule of law and with principles of a shared future.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. Over the years, the direct-rule Ministers have encountered difficulties, but in the past decade, since the ceasefire, things have been fairly cushy. As people in the Chamber understand, it was far more difficult before. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, is quite right to say that, throughout all the Troubles, the government of Northern Irelandhas continued. There were six departments, or11 departments, and the 24,000 or so civil servants administered matters that in some ways were done partly by local government. Nevertheless, they undertook the normal, run-of-the-mill administration of the health service, the roads and so on. That was all done by the Civil Service under enormous pressures and sometimes without the guidance that they would wish to have had from training; they were not trained to take decisions. Direct-rule Ministers were not there every day of the week, so they had to rely on common sense and good governance arrangements. We should certainly pay tribute to the Northern Ireland Civil Service. I am very glad that the noble Lord has done that.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I have a small, diffident, private suggestion to make. When I was a Minister in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board conducted a market survey in the Republic to find out, first, how many people had visited Northern Ireland in the previous 25 years; secondly, how many people would be prepared to contemplate spending a night in Northern Ireland; and, finally, how many would not go to Northern Ireland under any circumstances. The answer to the first question was about 25 per cent; to the second about 25 per cent; and to the third about 50 per cent. Perhaps I may suggest that actions speak louder than words and Members of your Lordships' House could contribute to their vote of confidence and interest in the Province by paying a private visit over the next12 months to see how everyone is getting on.

Lord Grenfell: My Lords, enlargement is one of the weightiest issues facing the European Union today. Developments since this report was published confirm and reinforce some important arguments and conclusions in it. Today—Europe Day—we can reflect on the accession of Bulgaria and Romania on 1 January and on current disquieting developments in Turkey. Efforts to agree a road map for reform of EU institutions continue to be relevant to our conclusions on the pace and scope of future enlargements. I shall refer to these developments again.
	I thank most sincerely all members of the committee at the time for the immense energy and expertise they dedicated to this long and comprehensive inquiry. We were aided admirably by our specialist adviser, Dr Katinka Barysch, an internationally recognised expert on this subject, and we are indebted also to Professor Anand Menon for his input. I also thank warmly Simon Burton, the Clerk, and Sarah Price, at that time the second Clerk to the Committee, who managed the inquiry with great skill and produced a draft of the typically high standard that we associate with our Clerks. I also take this opportunity to thank the Government for their comprehensive and thoughtful response.
	Enlargement has been an integral part of the EU's development over the past 50 years, and widening and deepening have always proceeded in parallel. The accession of Denmark, Ireland and the UK heralded the introduction of structural funding; that of Greece, Portugal and Spain, the building of the single market and the planning of monetary union; and that of Austria, Finland and Sweden, serious efforts towards a common foreign and security policy. Then in 2004, eight central and eastern European countries plus Cyprus and Malta came in. Was this the point at which public support for further widening and deepening began to weaken? Was that one of the messages that the French and Dutch voters sent when, 13 months later, they rejected the constitutional treaty, and, if so, why?
	Our inquiry aimed to establish whether, to quote the title of the report, further enlargement would thus pose greater threats than opportunities. To do that we first assessed past enlargements, especially of 2004, to illuminate current attitudes towards further enlargement. That in turn meant looking at what we call integration capacity and the debate concerning the future borders of the European Union. This involved a detailed look at candidates and potential candidates for membership, which then led us to consider the possible alternatives to enlargement and, crucially, the probable costs of not enlarging.
	What evidence did we find? On balance, the Union has coped well with growing membership. The 2004 enlargement in particular—the biggest in the EU's history—has brought benefits to all members because the prospect and process of accession, exporting the EU's brand values of democracy, human rights, openness and accountability, helped to transform so many former communist states into pluralist democracies and liberal economies. As Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn reminded us,
	"the process of accession triggered a major democratic and economic transformation without a single bullet being fired".
	Yet future enlargement faces a major obstacle: lack of public support in western Europe, combined with a hostile or ambiguous stance by many political leaders in member states. Why, for example, did France change its constitution to make any accession after Croatia subject to a national referendum, with all the chances of negative results? We found that attitudes towards enlargement remain fluid, influenced as they are by unrelated developments such as economic growth as well as lack of information. Little attempt has been made to explain the benefits that enlargement has brought. Misunderstandings about the impact of past enlargements, especially that of 2004, have stimulated public opposition to future enlargements.
	Member states' Governments, parliamentarians and other opinion-formers, and the European Commission, must do much more to explain the impact of enlargement to Europe's citizens, including issues such as migration, the link between enlargement and globalisation, and the need to find a way of living harmoniously with different religious communities. They must recognise that economic insecurity and employment are uppermost in citizens' minds when evaluating EU policies, and that a full 40 per cent feel that enlargement has been bad economically for their countries and for the EU as a whole.
	Our expert evidence almost unequivocally states that enlargement, acting as a catalyst of economic dynamism and modernisation, has helped the economies of both old and new member states to better face the challenges of globalisation. Much of the economic impact had begun to be felt in the early 1990s as the aspirant states prepared for acceptance as official candidates through the gradual demolition of trade and investment barriers, and with the adoption of the acquis communautaire benefiting business. The economic change induced by enlargement has been absorbed smoothly, without disruptive impacts on either product or labour markets.
	There is also little disagreement among the economists that higher immigration levels boost the aggregate performance of the economy, raisingthe supply of labour, filling jobs that are difficult to fill, lifting demand as migrants spend money and boosting output. More than half a million nationals from the latest new member states have registered for work in the United Kingdom. While this has of course put some strain on public services in some areas, there is no statistical evidence that migrant workers from new EU member states mean increased benefit applications.
	Many of the post-enlargement flows have been temporary. More than half of those registering for work in the UK intend to stay for less than three months—a proportion that has been climbing since the early days of enlargement. According to the Institute of Public Policy Research, there are signs that the early movers are starting to return home, having saved money and learnt new skills and languages. Meanwhile, arrivals from the three Baltic states—together the second largest group of migrants after the Poles—have fallen dramatically as economic conditions in their countries have steadily improved. This is the kind of message that member states' Governments need to get out to citizens, to counteract lack of information and misinformation.
	On the impact of the 2004 enlargement on the EU's institutions, the increased number of member states and the concomitant wider spread of interests and positions have made aspects of EU decision-making more laborious and time-consuming. That said, most witnesses felt that the EU was working rather smoothly. Earlier suggestions that enlargement could lead to institutional gridlock are not borne out by the evidence.
	Yet it may be too early to come to any hard and fast conclusions about impact on the institutions. The larger states may see the institutions as working mainly in the interests of the smaller members and would thus prefer informal decision-making outside them. The larger members already co-ordinate their positions before Council meetings, especially on foreign policy. That inevitably reinforces the broader trend towards more variable geometry, towards the use of enhanced co-operation. Voting weight in the three institutions also clearly needs to be sorted out before any further enlargement to take in, for example, the western Balkan states after Croatia.
	What further lessons did we draw for future enlargement? First, an official date for accession announced too early in the process does not sustain momentum for reform and the EU's leverage is diminished. A day should be set only when the negotiations are almost complete and the EU is satisfied that the candidate can assume the obligations of membership. This year's enlargement makes that point very clearly.
	A second lesson is that new members must not bring disputes into the EU. Countries with outstanding questions of border delineation, separatism or integration of ethnic minorities must settle them before membership. For example, the final status of Kosovo must be resolved before Serbia can expect to enter the EU, as do Bosnia and Herzegovina's statehood and governance.
	In that respect, one is bound to ask whether it was wise that Cyprus, still a divided island, following the Government's rejection of the Annan plan for reunification, should have been admitted. I should mention that the high commission of Cyprus expressed to me its concern that what were intended as geographical references in our report had proved capable of interpretation in a more political sense. I replied that I regretted that.
	A third lesson is that conditionality needs to be used in a consistent and credible way. The 2004 big bang enlargement rather undermined the credibility of conditionality because not all were at the same level of preparedness. A country must join only when the conditions have been met. The fourth lesson is that in monitoring accession preparations, the emphasis needs to be shifted from mere adoption of EU-conforming laws to implementation and enforcement. That lesson appears to have been learned with the recent introduction of benchmarking. In certain areas, Croatia has to provide evidence that it is applying EU law before negotiations on the relevant chapter can be opened or closed.
	Our report addresses the difficult question of absorption capacity, which we now call integration capacity, and the question of whether a final boundary needs soon to be drawn around the Union. As the Maastricht treaty gives any European country the right to apply for membership, any attempt to draw a final boundary that excludes European countries would not be consistent with the treaty. Moreover, it will be politically undesirable for the EU to attempt to define its final boundaries, as that would weaken its ability to encourage positive change by potential candidates.
	What of the political context for future enlargement? First, a larger EU will need institutional change and more efficient decision-making procedures, together with a rebalancing of the respective representation of large and small countries. Without those changes, the EU will not be able to grow and continue to function effectively. Sensible and functionally oriented improvements to the working practices of the Union, as set out in our report, could be dealt with in a new intergovernmental conference, as also recommended in our report, which we hope will now take place in time for changes to be made before the European Parliament elections and the formation of the new Commission in 2009.
	We next looked at the options for achieving more flexible ways of making policy in a Union of 27 or more members. We rejected the idea of a "core Europe", as proposed by Chirac, Sarkozy and Verhofstadt, and we are happy that Germany is against an idea which we concluded was unfeasible and undesirable. Of course, variable geometry in the form of enhanced co-operation as provided for in the Amsterdam and Nice treaties could, as we conclude in our report, be the method increasingly relied on in an expanding Union. That is no bad thing. Although variable geometry has not so far been formally employed, it exists de facto in, for example, opt-outs, Schengen and the eurozone. But any enhanced cooperation must be transparent, properly publicised, and open to all to participate. It must not endanger existing achievements such as the single market, and democratic accountability must be ensured.
	The financial cost of future enlargement is not easy to forecast. The current 80 per cent of the budget for the common agricultural policy and structural funds will not change fundamentally during the 2007-13 financial perspective, but the budget review of 2008-09, intended to point the way to, inter alia, a radical restructuring of spending, must take into account the possible impact of future accessions. The western Balkan aspirant states are already receiving a great deal of EU aid, so the extra cost of accession should be modest, and there is reason to hope that Turkey's continuing rapid expansion of its economy will diminish any demand for regional aid if and when it accedes.
	If the countries of the western Balkans are to be able to address their many challenges in terms of economic reform, statehood and the integration of minorities, they must be offered a credible EU perspective. We made commitments to their eventual accession at Thessaloniki and we must keep them, however long the road may be for some, if not all of them. I invite noble Lords to read the convincing evidence of the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, on that perspective. I add that in the western Balkans, the EU is dealing with more fragile and fractious countries than any that came in in 2004. The EU therefore needs a more proactive approach, devoting sufficient expertise and money and finding ways to maintain momentum for positive change over the extended accession process.
	Since our report was published, the Commission has decreed that, as we had urged, negotiations with Croatia and Turkey no longer be linked. Croatia has made good progress but there are still areas needing more, such as public administration, the judicial system and some branches of industry, and more needs to be done to implement the anti-corruption programme. That said, the European Parliament has specified 2009 as the date by which it should give its assent to Croatia's accession, even though the Commission stands by the Council's decision not to set any target dates.
	We examined objectively and extensively the pros and cons of Turkish membership. Our findings are in paragraphs 205 to 225. We concluded that it is in both Turkey's and the EU's best interests that the accession negotiations, whatever the hesitation and hostility hanging over them, be pursued in good faith and with a will to bring them to a successful conclusion.
	Noble Lords will recall that last December's General Affairs and External Relations Council agreed that eight of the 35 chapters of the acquis will not be opened until Turkey implements the Ankara protocol extending its customs union to the 10 new members of the EU, including Cyprus. Our report also insists that the economic isolation of the Turkish community in Northern Cyprus be ended. Turkey's accession, we argue, is of such strategic importance to the long-term development of the wider Europe that the Cyprus question must not be allowed to derail the accession talks.
	Turkey has made significant progress on reforms—another good example of the power that the prospect of EU accession can have. But much remains to be done, not least on human rights and freedom of expression. The current crisis over the election of a new president, which we hope may soon be resolved, reminds us once again of the propensity of the army to intervene in politics, a practice wholly incompatible with EU membership. In Turkey, there has been a sharp fall in public support for EU membership, and the efforts of those who want membership are frustrated not just by Turkey's internal problems, but also by negative views from many European players. As one pro-EU Turkish commentator put it over the weekend:
	"Frankly, Sarkozy's election is the last nail in the coffin of Turkey's relationship with the EU".
	Yet Commission President Barroso has just said that the Commission's position is that negotiations should continue. In my view, so they should.
	Last, we looked at possible alternatives to enlargement and at the cost of not enlarging. The EU needs to work with countries that have no immediate or even medium-term prospect of membership, and its European neighbourhood policy is a promising start, although it has had little impact so far. For the purposes of bringing about positive change in participating countries, its incentives are not attractive enough, its conditionality is not tough enough, and its policies not tailor-made enough for the different countries.
	The EU rightly aims to integrate non-members into its single market and let them take part in selected EU policies. The combination of variable geometry among members and growing association and integration with non-members could blur the boundaries of membership. That would be no bad thing. A "fortress Europe" would be.
	Some European politicians advocate a "privileged partnership" for EU neighbours as an alternative to further enlargement. Turkey, for one, would never accept that. With its customs union, it already has a privileged partnership. In the western Balkans, a privileged partnership would be seen, according to the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, as,
	"closing the door on them".
	We agree. EU Governments should stop talking about privileged partnerships. It can only demotivate candidate countries.
	When thinking about the costs of not enlarging, we had to distinguish between countries that have been told that they qualify for membership and those that have not. The political costs would obviously be much larger in the former. Remember the commitments at Thessaloniki. We must recognise that the EU 27 are surrounded by an arc of instability ranging from Russia through Belarus, Ukraine, the potentially explosive Caucasus and Balkan regions, to the war zones of the Middle East. So the EU's toughest task in future years could well be dealing with the challenges in its own neighbourhood. Take away the prospect of EU membership, however distant, and the incentive to change and embrace the EU's brand values in neighbouring countries may disappear with it.
	Our witnesses—policy-makers present and past, economists, diplomats, commentators and many other experts—almost unanimously agree that the 2004 enlargement was a success on which the EU now has to build to make it more manageable. Governments have to explain better to their citizens what the real benefits have been and can continue to be; to show, for example, that migration, if properly managed, has been a plus can remove many unfounded fears. In the interests of peace, stability and prosperity in Europe, we must keep the door open to further enlargement and welcome the candidacy of any European state that shows itself capable of meeting the conditions. That is the essential message of our report.
	The gains of enlargement have so far measurably outweighed the pains and we believe that they will continue to do so. I beg to move.
	Moved, That this House takes note of the report of the European Union Committee on Further Enlargement of the EU: Threat or Opportunity(53rd report, Session 2005-06, HL Paper 273).—(Lord Grenfell.)

Lord Roper: My Lords, it is an indication of the effectiveness of the chairman of the Select Committee that he was able to arrange that we could have a debate on this topic on Europe Day. It is obviously useful that we should have a chance to celebrate what has been one of the real achievements of the European Union in this century, the fifth range of enlargement. I also want to say how much I welcomed the Government's response to our report because it picked up and in almost every respect agreed with the points made by the Select Committee. I regret, as the report does, that less was done in 2004 to reinforce not only in this country but throughout the whole of the European Union the remarkable achievement we had made in making sure that there was an enlargement first to the 10 countries and then to 12—the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. To some extent, that enlargement in 2004, finalised by the addition of Bulgaria and Romania at the beginning of this year, marked the end of the 20th century. It was a significant point in the historical development of our continent.
	Despite its overall success I should like to say how much I agreed with two points made by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, in his remarks about flaws in that enlargement. First, we may have made a mistake over Cyprus. Failing to ensure that it had solved its internal problems before entry may have been a mistake, but we have to remember that at the time the European Union was possibly faced with the risk of Greek action to prevent any enlargement unless Cyprus was allowed to come in. However, it was a very unsatisfactory solution, and, as we can see in the consequences for Turkish accession, we are suffering from the decisions we took at that time.
	The second point made by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, with which I concur, concerned the mistake—this applies particularly to the cases of enlargement to Bulgaria and Romania—of fixing target dates. The announcement of target dates in advance removed the leverage the European Union would otherwise have had to ensure adequate judicial administrative reform before accession. Certainly, recent developments and instability in Romania's political structure since enlargement are worrying.
	Before going on to look in more detail at the issues of the next round of enlargement to the western Balkans and Turkey, we should remember the members of the European Economic Area and Switzerland, four further countries—the others are Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein—that could all presumably become members fairly quickly if they so wished. We tend to think about the difficult countries, but there are four countries in Europe that would be very welcome if their people were prepared to look at membership. From time to time we hear from Norwegian and Icelandic politicians, occasionally even from a Swiss politician, who would argue that enlargement to them should be encouraged.
	Politically, the situation in the western Balkans has become probably more complex and more difficult than last year, when we were considering the countries en bloc in our report. I totally agree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell: the Thessaloniki commitment of the European Union to the countries of the western Balkans must be maintained. We are pleased that Croatia is making such significant progress. The European Union Committee recently had an opportunity to hear the ambassador from Croatia, who was able to give us evidence of the progress being made. When we go beyond Croatia, however, we begin to find problems. I hope that the Minister will tell us why there has been a delay in opening negotiations with Macedonia, even though it was agreed that that country should have candidate status.
	In two of the other smaller countries, things seem to be going somewhat better. The technical negotiations are complete on the stabilisation and association agreement with Montenegro, and Commissioner Rehn and the Prime Minister initialled it on 15 March 2007. It looks as if Montenegro is moving in the right direction. Similarly, although Albania has a long way to come and has a number of difficult internal political problems at the moment, there is slow but steady progress.
	It is when we come to the remaining three countries in the western Balkans that we really have some difficulties. In Bosnia-Herzegovina the situation has probably slowed down since we considered the matter last year. A Government has still not been formed. There will be a replacement for Dr Schwarz-Schilling as High Representative, but there are still noises from Mr Dodic in Republika Srpska suggesting that he will want to see the knock-on effect of a Kosovo agreement. We should obviously continue to work with Bosnia-Herzegovina, but the progress will be slow. It is necessary that the option of membership is maintained.
	Serbia, if anything, is more difficult. The domestic politics are depressing. The news yesterday that the parliament has elected a speaker from the Radical party suggested that the rather more democratic parties were not able to hang together even to choose a speaker for their parliament. It is a paradox: if there is a country in the western Balkans that, in terms of its administrative structure and economic readiness, could be a member and begin negotiations relatively quickly, it is Serbia. The stabilisation and association agreement is virtually negotiated. None the less, it is difficult to be optimistic, given the continued "ambiguity", to be polite, of Serbian attitudes regarding General Mladic and the failure to deal seriously with those who are protecting him.
	The only grounds for optimism are that if a decision is made in the United Nations in the next few weeks over Kosovo, the Serbs will then perhaps have to accept reality and may be in a better position both to form a Government and to start some serious negotiations with the European Union. I will not say too much about Kosovo because, even as we meet here, discussions are going on at the UN about a possible settlement. If agreement is not reached, however, that will again be a problem.
	Turkey is much more difficult even than the western Balkans. I support the view in our report that we should look forward to the continuation and, we hope, the completion of negotiations with Turkey. Since we completed the report, however, I have become more aware of a need for us in this country to have a dialogue with our partners in other European countries trying to deal with the fears and misgivings that exist in other member states about Turkish membership. It is no use Britain just appearing as a country that is in favour of enlargement for enlargement's sake; we have to make the argument for why Turkish membership would be to the advantage of the European Union, and I am not sure we do that enough at the moment. We need to look at that.
	I am less worried than some about the election of Nicolas Sarkozy. It is likely to be at least 10 years before Turkish negotiations are continued, and while some prime ministers remain for 10 years, many of them do not do so for much more than that. There may well be a different president of France in office when we come to the conclusion of the negotiations.
	Here perhaps I am wrong, but I take a different view on the question of the current debate between the secularists and the political parties within Turkey. This is a dilemma in the development of Turkish democracy that is bound to occur, and needs to. The debate may be healthy for those in Turkey if they are able to work out a new and more appropriate balance—at least, I would like to think so.
	In our report we referred to the European neighbourhood policy, which is sometimes suggested as an alternative to membership of the European Union. It would be a mistake to see it in that way. In some countries—those in North Africa, for example—it is a sensible alternative, but for those who are European neighbours it should be seen as a situation where they can work, modernise, improve and perhaps adapt themselves so that they become valid candidates for membership. I believe that we could see, not necessarily in my lifetime but perhaps in the next 20 to 30 years, European Union membership for the Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus. They should not be excluded, nor should they automatically be offered membership at this stage.
	This is an important report. It points the way to a number of the areas of policy that we in this country have to take forward in the development of the Union in the years to come.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, first, I reiterate my position on the EU, which is, as it has always been, that we should never have gone in and that we should come out tomorrow. Having said that, I congratulate the committee on the work that it has put in on the subject of enlargement. It is a highly important subject and needs a great deal of consideration and discussion. I wish to comment on some aspects of the report. I had thought that I should be an odd man out today, but that has not proved to be the case. I am very encouraged by the cautionary tone of some of the speeches. In some respects, I shall follow what has already been said, in particular about the accession of Turkey.
	From my point of view and that of many others, widening has always meant deepening. Some people have taken the view that widening would lead to less deepening. I have always taken the view that widening is bound to lead to more deepening. That has been the case. The committee commented on current attitudes of the public to enlargement. The Government do not give the public enough credit for knowing what is going on. They feel that they need to explain the benefits of the EU and enlargement. When I have asked, "What are the benefits?" I have always been told by the Government that they are self-evident. Clearly, the Select Committee does not feel that that is the case. In this case, the Government agree with it and want to convince the people one way or another. One of the ways in which they could do so with regard to the policies of the EU is to produce a cost-benefit analysis. That has been requested by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, who is present today.
	Indeed, the public are not unaware of many of the implications, especially the dilution of Britain's voting strength in the institutions, extra costs and the potential for large waves of immigration after each enlargement. Although the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, said that the general view is that immigration helps the economy to grow, and is beneficial to the economy, other people believe that that is simply not true; they believe that, when you take infrastructure costs, housing and what have you into account, far from there being a benefit, there is a detriment. There are different points of view among the public and they are aware of the difficulties.
	The impact of previous enlargements has led to more centralisation—an increase in powers. Already some 70 per cent of policy emanates from the European Union. I do not know how much more there will be. There are the present demands to bring back the EU constitution in one form or another to deal with the latest influx of new member states. These suggestions include a two-and-a-half-year presidency, a foreign minister, a legal personality and the relinquishment of most of the remaining vetoes. If those are brought about, that would be a serious deepening of the European Union and a huge increase in its powers and influence.
	On costs, the committee points out that the budget review will have to take into account future enlargements. So it will. The committee refers to the fact that discussions will take place in 2008-09. What, I should like to know, will happen to our rebate during those discussions? That has been under attack for a very long time. The French in particular see 2009 as the date when Britain will lose its rebate, in part to finance future enlargements.
	What about future enlargements? I have read the details in the report with some astonishment. Under the heading "Candidates and potential candidates", the report states:
	"The Union could be faced with the stark choice between integrating ... or having to take responsibility for running them as protectorates".
	Have you ever heard anything like that in modern times? It smacks of old-fashioned imperialism. The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, gives me a look of disagreement, but we are talking about "running them as protectorates". If that is not imperialism, I do not know what is.
	We need to know the limits of enlargement. Are there any limits at all? The treaties referred to an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, but recent indications of government policy seem to envisage a much wider union embracing a geographical area beyond Europe. There are 13 possible entrants in Europe if Belarus and the former Soviet republics are included, but the present drive—and we have heard about it in practically every speech tonight—is to admit Turkey. Turkey is an Asian country. It has ancient roots and an ancient culture as well as an overwhelmingly Muslim population. By 2016, the target date for accession, the population of Turkey will be between 90 million and 100 million, as the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, pointed out. That would make it by far the largest country in the European Union—far bigger than Germany, which is the largest country at present.
	Turkey's accession would have enormous implications for the European Union and our own country would suffer from them. These profound implications are not being considered by Governments, let alone their populations. If Turkey is admitted, there will not be a European union; it will be a Eurasian union. Make no mistake; you cannot get away from the geographical position of Turkey. It is an Asian country.
	Furthermore, if we cross that Rubicon, once the precedent has been set, what is to stop further eastern expansion into Asia? How will the EU be able to refuse applications from countries such as Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan if Turkey is admitted? That would add a further population of 70 million to 80 million to the Union and bring additional problems, including the governance of such a diversity of peoples.
	There is now talk of the EU's relationship with north Africa. Mr Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly elected French President, specifically mentioned north Africa in his speech following his election. Some people are arguing already that the colonial relationship of north Africa with many European countries gives it a superior claim to join the club than the likes of Turkey and other Asian countries.
	We really ought to get down to defining the limits—if there are any in the minds of Governments and others—of EU expansion. If we do not, we will find ourselves facing unimaginable, insoluble problems and difficulties that could lead to a complete collapse of the whole edifice. The report is entitled, "Enlargement of the EU: threat or opportunity?". I have made it clear that I believe it to be a threat.

Lord Stevens of Ludgate: My Lords, I apologise to the House and to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, for missing the beginning of his speech. I congratulate him and his committee on the report on EU enlargement. I am pleased to say that for once I agree with almost every comment or recommendation.
	Enlargement has benefited not only those countries that have joined in recent years but also, in many cases, existing members. Although immigration into the UK appears to be uncontrolled, there is not doubt that the 0.5 to 1 million people who have come in since 2004 have stimulated the economy. The Government, we are reminded, forecast 26,000 over that period. However, with so much to agree with, I think that the Dutch would be disappointed to read that their GDP is only just greater than that of Malta, and it would have been informative to have included an analysis of population trends. The old EU has a rapidly ageing and declining population, as we all know, thus placing a huge burden on the working population. The new members tend to have younger and growing populations, particularly Turkey—although it is not a member—which will be absolutely essential if the EU is to grow and expand. I am sure that without the influx of foreign workers the UK inflation rate would have been immeasurably higher.
	I was encouraged to read that new members have a preference for a Europe of nations, because they fear that in a federal Europe their voices would be lost. However, I was discouraged to read that there was no evidence that enlargement had led to gridlock in EU institutions. That might have forced a reform of them, which most agree is desirable.
	The conflict between the deepeners and the wideners, as they are termed, reflects a disenchantment with the EU as it now is. To have the EU as a large and growing single market is surely better than having continued political integration. Let us hope that the desire to sort out the constitutional question is not speeded up at the impending June meetings, and is not shuffled through as minor changes not requiring a referendum in the desire to agree to further countries eligible for enlargement.
	I was delighted to read that the committee recommends that the constitutional treaty described by the Prime Minister as a tidying-up exercise should not be adopted in its present form. I very much hope that Turkey will be offered full membership; to offer less would be insulting to a great nation and not in our best interests, although how that can be reconciled to President Sarkozy's views will be difficult.
	In June, Europe's leaders meet to try to revive the European constitution. Their desire to do so is contrary to the desires of many of their electorates and, what is more, electors want a direct say in any decisions that are taken. Some 75 per cent of them in a recent poll said that they wanted a referendum. As I have said, our Prime Minister said that the earlier constitution was a tidying-up exercise. In the same breath, he said that he recommended it as a success and a major step forward in creating the kind of Europe that the British people want. It is strange that he did not have the courage to put it to the referendum that he had promised us. Now we are told that we should have a mini-constitution and that without it the EU would stop functioning. However, as the committee so ably points out, the EU has not ground to a halt since the no votes in 2005. Indeed, nearly 5,000 directives and/or regulations have been produced in the past two years.
	Our leaders are now trying to bring in a mini-constitution by the back door, without referendums—a single legal entity with a single foreign policy and full authority over home affairs. The word "constitution" is of course not being used, and the suggestion is that the contents of the Charter of Fundamental Rights should be cross-referenced to give it the same legal value. If only some effort were made to roll back the EU's powers from the largely unaccountable Brussels bureaucracy, to repatriate employment and fishing and reform the common agricultural policy or even sign off the accounts, the electorate might be more interested.
	In this age of globalisation, the EU needs to look outward, not inward, and adapt to the challenges of a fast-changing world, to recognise that restrictions and regulation will not meet the opportunities awaiting China, India and the developing world with a population of nearly 4 billion compared to the EU's 460 million. In the absence of this, a core Europe with the UK excluded or variable geometry, as it is called, may be the way forward. But the EU must go on taking new members for the many reasons so eloquently set out in the report. The more members there are, the more diverse will views become and, one hopes, in the absence of reform of Brussels from within, the larger EU will become ungovernable and will be forced to perform the rationalisation that most agree is now urgent. So my objective is the same as that of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, but I believe that it will be achieved by enlargement, creating so many problems that the EU as we know it today will cease to exist.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, it is always an exceptional privilege to hear the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, as it was today when he introduced this important debate. In a remarkable overview, the noble Lord—Julian Grenfell, if I may refer to him as such—made a genuine, nuanced and sensitive analysis, which results from considerable expertise. I think that the House will thank him for it, and I shall try to address what he described as his lessons.
	I also thank the European Union Committee for its report, which is a valuable contribution to the debate on enlargement and the future of Europe. I wholeheartedly endorse its findings. Enlargement remains one of the EU's most successful policies and it is one to which the United Kingdom has made a strong contribution. Full credit is due to this House for its support in that.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, with, as ever, a penetrating analysis, introduced the very real concept of strategic choice. We are not at the point of final choice; nor am I clear that some of the contradictions between the strategic directions can be resolved at this moment. However, it is absolutely clear to me that that debate will have to be had. It will be not just about the consequences of economic differentiation, important though those are, but also, in a cultural sense, about the essentials of a social Europe and how will they be understood across a terrain as large as the one that the noble Lord has painted.
	As this debate has demonstrated, EU enlargement covers a wide range of topics. I shall focus on a few themes: the success of past enlargements, the challenges ahead and the need to ensure a flexible yet rigorous approach to accession. The Government and all the major parties have favoured enlargement—a sensible, careful process—for reasons that we need to discuss briefly. They are not, I know, the mischievous reasons entertainingly advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Ludgate; none the less, I hope that he will bear with me as I express ours.
	The noble Lord, Lord Roper, made the point that we do not celebrate enough what has been achieved. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, made the same point—as did my noble friend Lord Dubs—although he said that the contribution made by the United Kingdom to the outcome of the success was perhaps not the predicted one when people saw a much smaller Community but have had to adjust to a much larger one.
	Enlargement has been at the core of the development of the EU. It enabled the peaceful reunification of Europe after the Second World War and across the Cold War divide. It continues to be the engine for security and prosperity. Of course, I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, least of all with the phantom that he raises of new imperialism. With the greatest courtesy, I say to him that we crossed the Rubicon long ago—as I recall it was in Italy and certainly not on the route to Turkey.
	The security issues, touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, require a special relationship with those places where wars and ethnic conflict have not yet been resolved. I would have thought that, since the Dayton accord, we have all understood exactly what was involved in that and what one had to do to secure peace. Each round of enlargement has helped. It has brought new jobs, new markets and new investment opportunities. With a population of 490 million, the EU now represents the largest internal market in the world. Together we are better able to respond to increasing global competition.
	For the United Kingdom, the economic benefits of the 2004 accession are clear. Our exports to the A10 were worth almost £8 billion in 2006, compared with £4.6 billion in 2004. Exports to Poland alone rose by 67 per cent in 2006. UK firms such as Tesco, Unilever, Vodafone and BP are successful investors in new member and candidate countries. Our labour markets have benefited from increased output and jobs.
	I know that some in the media will continue to peddle their fears of mass immigration to the United Kingdom, but I suggest that this House understands the reality in a rather different way. Migrants have contributed to our growth and tax revenues while gaining new skills. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Ludgate, may be right about the impact of the age structure as a factor. That is an extremely important and interesting point but, even without that, the preliminary economic analysis shows that this has been a positive development.
	Enlargement, more than any other policy, has transformed poverty to prosperity and conflict to peace across Europe. While the path to accession provides incentives, it also involves challenging economic reforms for candidate countries. I commend Romania and Bulgaria, our two newest EU partners, for their progress. For example, until 2000, 36 per cent of Romania's population lived in poverty, inflation was running at 54 per cent and the budget deficit had spiralled out of control. In 2006, Romania's economic growth stood at 7.7 per cent, inflation was down to single digits and the budget deficit stood at 1.7 per cent. There is more to do, of course, but what a remarkable advance that has been.
	It is right to focus on economic benefits, but the figures do not always tell the full story of EU membership. For centuries, Europe has been disfigured by conflict. Tens of millions of innocent Europeans died in two world wars. Again, in the 1990s, Europe witnessed ethnic genocide in the former Yugoslavia. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, summed it up throughout his speech, particularly by saying that it is the movement to democracy—and the quality of Europe's democracy—that is critical for success in overcoming these scars.
	It is easy to take Europe's stability for granted. In the last half of the last century, we forged a different way so that today's young Europeans will be the first generation who do not listen to tales of what their grandparents did during the war, fearing that they, too, might have to make those terrible sacrifices in conflict. Over the past 50 years, more and more of us have decided to share mutual security arrangements and to build close trade links. Of course, national rivalries do not vanish easily, but they are now insignificant compared with international co-operation. President Clinton rightly described the new architecture of Europe as the greatest and most successful example of fixing in place peace and community.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, EU membership has fostered democracy, the rule of law, trade and deep commitment to human rights. My parents' generation chose that path and succeeded. Indeed, some Members of your Lordships' House were party directly to that success. In my view, all of them are to be congratulated. I hope that we have the ability to build on their vision, which is why I have no time for the scepticism that denies the achievement of that period. Of course, there are practical challenges ahead. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, was right to emphasise accountability in those challenges. I agree that the enlargement process needs to be robust and based on the Copenhagen criteria. As the committee notes, this should not prevent us from tailoring our approach in the light of experience.
	We have learnt lessons from the fifth wave of enlargement; for example, in the administration of justice and the fight against crime and corruption. We recognise how difficult it can be to tackle those issues. That is why European leaders agreed last December to ensure that those issues are focused on early in the negotiation process. There are, for example, now defined benchmarks for justice and home affairs issues. These new requirements will help—not hinder—Turkey, Croatia and the western Balkans as they move towards EU membership. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, demanded stronger scrutiny, and those are the areas in which stronger scrutiny would be invaluable.
	That brings me to Turkey. We should be more rigorous in pursuing the terms for enlargement here, but that does not mean that we should set impossible conditions. The accession process is a compact. It requires commitment from the candidate to be matched by a firm commitment from the European Union that, if the standards are met, accession will ensue. The noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, raised the issue of risk in all this. Although the boundaries of Europe are perhaps wisely not defined—I am not sure that I understood the point entirely—as prescriptively as he was suggesting, I strongly share his balanced judgment of the advantage. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, also made that point about borders. Incidentally, the borders are defined not only in geopolitical terms, but often through popular culture—through competitions in things such as football or singing, or what passes for singing—and they spread across into wider areas.
	The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, called for a pause in this context. Like others, I fear that much progress will stop if we have the kind of pause that was advocated. I am quite certain that a decade of debate is quite a pause in its own right, as we work through those issues. So we welcome last December's European Council reaffirmation that it would honour existing commitments to Turkey and other countries in the enlargement process. A Turkey anchored in the EU will make all Europe more secure, stable and prosperous. The prospect of membership alone has already brought positive change.
	In recent years, Turkey has abolished the death penalty and is working hard on a zero-tolerance policy toward torture and on improved rights for women and minority groups, although it is clear to me that there is much further to go in all those respects. Those reforms must continue and, unfortunately, we should acknowledge that the pace has slowed. As the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, said, we have to continue to urge the Turkish Government to address those areas of concern.
	Before accession, Turkey, like all prospective members, must fulfil its contractual obligations, specifically by opening its ports to Cypriot shipping under the Ankara agreement protocol. EU Foreign Ministers have been clear that failure here will affect the overall pace of negotiations. But it makes sense for Turkey to move ahead on technical chapters of the negotiations while it works towards meeting the political conditionality. All those factors, as my noble friend Lord Dubs said, have to be weighed in the balance as we move forward.
	A number of noble Lords spoke of the recent events in Turkey surrounding the election processes and the unhelpful—as the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, specifically reminded us—intervention of the military. My noble friend Lord Dubs and the noble Lord, Lord Renton of Mount Harry, also mentioned the issues of political Islam and the difficulties in maintaining a secular state, as those pressures are expressed. The capacity to create and sustain a secular state with a people who are overwhelmingly Muslim is one of the things that, if we can get it right, will add specific political and historical value to Turkish accession.
	As to Mr Sarkozy, I am aware that his comments have been received with dismay in Turkey. He has made no secret of his opposition to its membership of the EU, and his position hardened during the recent campaign. He has spoken of launching an early debate in Europe to reconsider Turkey's accession negotiations. He has raised alternatives, such as privileged partnership and so on. We will have to have that argument. The reality is that the door is currently open to Turkey, Croatia and other countries in the western Balkans, and those countries have to show that they are ready to walk through that door and are capable of doing so. The process that I have just described is precisely what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, was calling for. It is a point at which careful thought about how to carry this forward is essential. I do not entirely think that, as the noble Lord, Lord Roper, suggested, in several years' time, but within the decade, there may be another French president. There may or may not be, but there will not be another French people. Those arguments will have to be held, as the noble Lord recognises. As he suggested, in doing so, we must have a dialogue with other Europeans.
	The crucial point is that staying on this path, focused on the objective of EU membership, will keep the Turkish Government committed to reform. That was true of Poland and Romania, and I believe it will be true of Turkey and Croatia. Like the noble Lords, Lord Roper and Lord Grenfell, I think issues have been thrown up by the accession of Cyprus and the way that Turkey now deals with these things, but I suspect that the resolution of borders in advance teaches a lesson for the future. On balance, the progress on the 10 accession countries was probably the greater gain.
	Croatia is undertaking a series of political, economic and judicial reforms to meet accession standards. They are a fitting tribute to former Prime Minister Racan, who died last week, who paved the way for Croatia's eventual accession to the EU. I agree with the committee's assertion that Croatia should be able to accede as soon as it meets the necessary standards. The prospect of enlargement has set Croatia on the right path and while there is some way to go, it encapsulates the aspirations of its western Balkan neighbours.
	I agree with the points made in the committee's report about not fixing dates. The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, came to the same conclusion for slightly different reasons, but I agree with the point, which is still right. I agree with the committee that a credible EU perspective for the western Balkans is vital, not least given the challenges those countries face. As the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, noted, enlargement is the glue which keeps those countries from falling off the path of reform. That is why it is important to keep reaffirming the Thessaloniki commitment at the European Council in 2003 that,
	"the future of the Western Balkans is within the European Union.'
	The committee is also correct to note that giving these countries candidate status would present the EU with new challenges; it certainly will. The EU needs to provide financial and technical assistance to help the western Balkans meet the Copenhagen criteria. The EU's instrument for pre-accession funding provides that support. Between 2007 and 2013, just over half the €11 billion budget will be allocated to the western Balkans. That does not mean that those countries should immediately be given candidate status. There is a clear pre-accession process, the one which Croatia has followed, which is, in essence, a graduated process which demands step-by-step progress on, for example, co-operation with The Hague tribunal and on minority rights.
	As a nation, we remain a strong supporter of EU and NATO integration for Macedonia, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Roper. We were pleased that the December 2005 European Council granted Macedonia candidate status. We want to see Macedonia in the EU, but the speed at which it can move towards EU membership will ultimately depend on the pace that it can sustain in its reform efforts. We should encourage it, and it is important that it does not take its foot off the gas.
	I shall turn briefly to the European neighbourhood policy. As to the wider neighbourhood, I agree with the report's conclusion that the EU needs an effective policy to work with countries that do not at this stage have a prospect of EU membership. The European neighbourhood policy provides a framework to engage with southern and eastern neighbours on social, political and economic reform. I agree with the committee's view that the ENP should not be viewed as an alternative to the prospect of membership for the EU's eastern neighbours, such as the Ukraine and Moldova. I say to my noble friend Lord Dubs that in the case of Moldova, the 2007 enlargement prospects have brought the EU to the border of the Black Sea region. Moldova is one of the countries that benefits from special support under the European neighbourhood policy and will receive €13 billion over the financial prospective to 2013. That investment is already producing results. There is much better support for economic and political reform, including twinning and the secondment of civil servants from the UK and other member states to help in the process. However, there is scope for the ENP to offer better incentives to partner countries, and I thank noble Lords on the committee for all the suggestions they have made. Work is going forward with EU partners to develop ideas for stronger incentives for partner countries to reform.
	I agree that the prospect of EU membership can and should remain a lever for reform across Europe. There is no sense in drawing up new dividing lines; Europe has long resisted any attempt to define itself in strict geographical, cultural or religious terms, and I think that that flexibility gives it strength. Our focus should instead be to build a strong, democratic, stable neighbourhood, rather than to determine at this stage the final frontiers of the EU.
	I cannot accept the allegation of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Ludgate, that there is a secret plan to import a mini-constitution by stealth. We live in a very transparent world, and what is going on is pretty visible to everybody. Many people have questioned the impact of the enlargement on EU institutions; the spring European Council showed that an EU with 27 member states can function and deliver on the issues that matter to ordinary people: energy, climate change, security and better regulation. The EU is not in a crisis. However, there are some institutional questions that need to be addressed quickly. Existing treaty commitments require us to look again at the size of the Commission now that Bulgaria and Romania have joined the EU. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, about the number of commissioners must be resolved because there is an obligation to do that as soon as we can. We are in discussion with the German presidency and other EU partners and will consider all proposals that meet the interests of the United Kingdom and help to deliver a more effective EU. This will be an issue for discussion by all EU partners in June. I shall not add to the comments the Prime Minister made on 16 April about the idea of a conventional amending treaty because I have addressed the House on that question in the recent past.
	The committee said that debates on the institutional structure of the EU should not put a pause on enlargement, and it is right. Candidates will be judged on their merits; to do otherwise will send negative signals, as noble Lords said. For that reason, I fully endorse the committee's conclusion on the importance of honouring our clear commitments to Turkey, Croatia and the other western Balkans countries.
	Challenges remain and the enlargement process is not perfect, but each successive round has led to improvements. It remains the EU's most effective soft power lever to reform. The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, said that we need a good co-operative Europe as we face the difficulties and challenges—economic and others—from the rest of the world. Indeed, he will be right in his prediction that we will need as much unity and consistency as possible as a weight in international negotiations and processes.
	As the committee notes, the process of enlargement has been an integral part of the EU's development over the past 50 years. As history has shown, managed properly, it offers us all many more opportunities than risks. It does not remove our obligation to be careful or to explain more to the public about the achievements. That is a difficulty in a country where Euro-sceptic media, for example, generally have nothing good to say about Europe.
	Not all the political methods that we have for engaging in the debate seem to have the same sort of effect. There may be things that could be said, and said more effectively. The EU could certainly use a more approachable lexicon in everything that it says. As somebody who tries to study these things closely, on occasion I find it extremely difficult to follow. More important, the powerful history of creating peace as the unifying theme of modern Europe may be the key. We should not underestimate it when we try to get people of all generations to understand the steps that have been taken.
	This evening's debate has been about a vision for Europe—a growing area of prosperity and democracy, and decency, too. That is absolutely true. It is a work in progress; it is serious work and work worth doing.

Lord Grenfell: My Lords, this has been a satisfying debate and I sincerely thank every one of the noble Lords who has participated in it. It is a great privilege to bring before the House a report that stimulates this kind of interest. If the numbers were a little sparse this evening, the quality of the debate was as high as ever. I thank the Minister for his thoughtful response and I thank the two Front Benches for their comprehensive comments.
	I have one quick comment on what was said about Turkey. The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, echoed the noble Lord, Lord Roper, when he asked what the European Union would look like in 10 years' time. It is an excellent question, but we also have to ask what Turkey will look like in 10 years' time. Yes, it will probably have between 85 million and 90 million people, but it is a mistake to conclude that it is somehow then going to dominate the agenda in the European Union. No single country, however large it is, can dominate the agenda unless it builds a coalition to do so. That is true of Germany, it is true of Poland and it will be true of Turkey, if Turkey comes in.
	Let us not forget that Turkey has a young, hard-working, dynamic and increasingly well educated population. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Ludgate, spoke up for them. Clearly, they will bring huge benefits to the European Union if Turkey becomes a member because they are the kind of people who can make a real contribution.
	Lastly on Turkey, we do not need any scare stories about its masses or about thousands and thousands of Turkish workers beating on the doors here. That is not realistic. If Turkey comes in, there will almost certainly be temporary restrictions and probably quite a long transition period. It may well be around 2025 before any Turk who wants to come in will be able to. I am sure that there will be long transition periods; I may be wrong, but that is my gut feeling. We should not entertain scare stories, which some people would like to put about, about invasions of foreign workers.
	Finally, as many noble Lords have pointed out, there will only be one more accession in this decade, which we hope will be Croatia. It may be well into the middle of the following decade, or getting close to it, before we see any more. In effect, this is a kind of pause. Those who said that that pause should not be formally declared are quite right. As one noble Lord said, it is easy to declare a pause but extremely hard to know when to end it. Let us not forget that it has to be ended by unanimity. We could be caught in a trap.
	Enlargement remains on the agenda. The fact that there is only one more accession to come in this decade does not mean that it is off the agenda. I implore noble Lords to keep it on the agenda here, too. It needs to be watched carefully, with all the attention that it deserves. It is a huge issue, even though the next accession may be some way off. We also have to watch how the new members do and learn the lessons from the latest enlargements. It is still early days and we cannot draw all the firm conclusions that we would like to on the basis of what has happened since 2004. On that basis, I commend the report to your Lordships and thank noble Lords once again for their participation.